DAYTONA BEACH

DAYTONA BEACH -- It seemed like an odd place to find Jesus, in the midst of motorcycles and leather-(and often scantily)clad women. But there was Glenn Taylor, a 63-year-old South Carolina preacher, standing next to a table of Bibles and other Christian literature along Main Street on Saturday.


Taylor was one of several veteran Christian bikers who, in the crowd of Bike Week 2011's grand finale Saturday, saw ample opportunity to spread the Word. Despite an event that, at face value, seems to be incongruous with Christianity, Taylor and others said they usually get a good response from the bikers, and that this year's crowd has been the most receptive yet.


The key to success, according to Taylor and others, is a hands-off approach.
"There are two main kinds of bikers," Taylor said.


Taylor described the "yuppie biker crowd" who ride on the weekends for fun, and the "hard-core crowd" who would make a career of biking, if they could. If biking were a religion, the hard-core crowd would be the fundamentalists. While yuppie bikers will trailer their bikes for long trips, hard-core bikers abhor the idea.


There is one trait both groups share, though, according to Taylor -- they ignore preachers.
So, Taylor took a quiet approach to proselytizing, standing next to a table of books available to take home for free. He only spoke when spoken to.


Hector Lopez was a different kind of preacher. Lopez, a.k.a. "The Orlando Birdman," brought six of his 16 birds to Main Street on Saturday. Three of them stood on his bicycle Saturday afternoon while he arranged the other three -- two Macaws and a Cockatoo -- on the shoulders of a woman.


Lopez, 49, snapped a picture of the woman, handed her a card so she could get the picture later, then asked for a donation, "to feed the birds."


When asked about his bicycle, Lopez explained he had "gone green" six years before and didn't drive anywhere. He wanted to travel the country, he explained, preaching to people that they don't need to rely on cars and fossil fuels to get places.


But how did he get to Daytona Beach on Saturday from Orlando?
"I drove him," said Samantha Rovnak, 24, a neighbor of Lopez's and fellow animal enthusiast who brought her bearded dragon -- a lizard -- to pose along with the birds for pictures. "We just threw his bike in the trunk and headed over."


Andrea Pressimone, Lopez's roommate and partner in the birdman business, said this was their second Bike Week.


"It's a great crowd," said Pressimone, 37. "We're thinking about renting an RV and coming back next year for the whole week."


Chuck Pickett, another Christian biker parked along Main Street on Saturday, has come to Bike Week off and on for 15 years to hand out Bibles. In years past, three or four people per day would thank Pickett, 70, of Inglis, for his quiet evangelism.


This year, Pickett said, 30 or 40 people per day are thanking him. Why?
"The hardness of times, I think," Pickett said. "People are hurting."
Parked next to Pickett was John Britz, who rode his bike down from Export, Pa., for the 21st consecutive year to pass out Bibles at Bike Week.


Britz, 65, echoed what Taylor said earlier, that the aggressive preaching style favored by those with megaphones and large signs inspires apathy at best among bikers, ignorance and anger at worst.


Britz also made it very clear which of Taylor's two biker crowds he fit into.
"I ride here. Every year. I don't trailer. Put that in bold letters," he told a reporter, in a tone more serious than he used to discuss anything else, even his religious beliefs.
"I don't trailer."


Daytona Beach, Florida (CNN) -- Daytona Beach's yearly motorcycle invasion, Bike Week, just concluded its 70th year, and the average attendees were not much younger.
Leather-clad riders on Harley-Davidsons could be seen throughout the Florida resort town riding alongside large, stately motorcycles carrying a CEO and lawyers in khaki and blue Oxford button-downs.


On the one hand, this is not your father's Bike Week -- the one with the reputation of topless girls and bike gangs fighting in the street.


On the other hand, this is your father's Bike Week -- they're still coming with their aging baby boomer friends, though they've mellowed over the years.


"Most of the folks have a good income," said Kevin Kilian, vice president of the Daytona Chamber of Commerce.


"They are like me, 40 to 50 year olds, and they are a little long in the tooth," said Kilian.
Daytona's bike celebration began in 1937, centered on a motorcycle race between the beach and the street. In the beginning, the race and festival were separate weekend family events, Kilian said. The two events came together, expanding into a 10-day celebration throughout the Daytona area. World War II interrupted the event for several years.


Over the years, Daytona's Bike Week became seen as a hangout for dangerous motorcycle gangs involved in illegal activities.


"As the progression goes, it was -- I don't want to say rougher -- (rather) a different crowd back in those days," said the chamber vice president. "The stereotype that some attribute to Bike Week doesn't exist anymore."


In the 1980s, Daytona city leaders told the Chamber of Commerce to clean up Bike Week or get rid of it. Over the years, the chamber worked with sponsors, city officials and police to clean up the image by eliminating the rough crowds.


They still exist, but not to the extent as it did in the late '80s, yearly attendees say. Some bars in Daytona, however, still have signs on their front doors telling bikers to not wear their bike club "colors" or logos on their jackets in order to keep peace among opposing bike clubs But the only gang that has over run the town this year has larger waistlines, graying hair and a whole lot more money to spend. Venders sell everything from tourist trinkets, leather gear and motorcycles accessories. The motorcycles themselves that can run as high as $35,000.